By Allison Torres Burtka
Michigan Law
How can AI improve access to the legal system and to justice? This semester, as part of the AI Law and Policy Clinic, 20 Michigan Law students partnered with courts, legal aid organizations, and other nonprofits to identify barriers and challenges—and then design AI-assisted tools to help. At a recent showcase, they presented their prototypes and solicited feedback from members of the judiciary and other stakeholders.
“The showcase did two things at once. It gave our students a chance to demonstrate the remarkable work they’ve done this semester,” said Professor Vivek S. Sankaran, ‘01, who directs the AI Law and Policy Clinic with Professor Bridgette A. Carr, ‘02. “Just as importantly, it brought courts, legal aid organizations, and other stakeholders into the room to listen, ask questions, and start imagining what this technology might do for the people they serve.”
Over the semester, students used design thinking to create prototypes of tools that could help unrepresented and underrepresented people navigate complex or confusing systems. The tools also streamline processes, easing the burden on courts and nonprofits.
The eight student teams tackled problems ranging from migrant workers in debt bondage to college-bound foster youth figuring out their financial aid options.
—————
Helping parents create parenting time schedules
One team partnered with the 17th Circuit Court in Kent County, Michigan. Each year, thousands of unrepresented parents file incomplete motions for parenting time, which is the designated time a child spends with each parent if they live separately.
The students—Karma Karira, Habib Saad, and Graham Hardig—built a web tool with a guided interview that creates a court-ready parenting time schedule. It walks users through Michigan’s 12 best-interest factors for parenting time.
Often, parents are overwhelmed with the packet of guidelines and motions they’re given, said Karira, a 3L. “The tool guides parents through the practical details of parenting time disputes, pickup times, holiday assignments, transportation, and even snow days protocol, prompting them to think through factors they might otherwise overlook,” she said.
The tool includes an AI chatbot that explains legal terms, including “what a plaintiff or a defendant is, what a moving party is, and the Michigan law around custody and parenting time and the differences between those,” Karira said.
In the domestic relations part of the court, at least half of the litigants are self represented, said Judge T.J. Ackert of the Kent County 17th Circuit Court, Family Division. “Self-represented litigants are nervous and intimidated when they come to the court, so they’re not sure what they should do. Secondly, they’re not familiar with legal language or statutes or court rules, and that tends to narrow what they say when they should be more explanatory,” so their statements often are cryptic, he said.
The students visited Ackert’s courtroom to observe hearings. “The tool provides more access for self-represented litigants. They can easily access a motion to set up parenting time. They understand better the best-interest factors that need to be addressed in any motion,” said Ackert, who hopes to continue working with the clinic and improving the tool. “I think it’s just an excellent process and provides better information to the courts.”
—————
An emergency toolkit for parental authority
Another team of students—Ari Calem, Kate Zoeller, and Zack Born—talked with nonprofits in communities dealing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions and learned that Delegation of Parental Authority (DOPA) is a common issue. A DOPA form gives someone temporary legal authority to take care of and make decisions for a child if the parent(s) can’t. Immigrant parents may be unaware of these forms, and legal complexity and language barriers often lead to errors, especially in a crisis when a parent is detained.
The team built a tool that helps parents who face potential detention or deportation fill out DOPA forms properly. The multilingual, step-by-step tool asks structured questions, validates inputs, and generates a ready-to-sign document in plain language.
“It also explains what an attorney-in-fact is, what a notary is, and where you can find a notary and how to get the form notarized,” Calem said.
One showcase attendee pointed out that, because parents sometimes need DOPA forms for reasons unrelated to immigration—like traveling without their kids—the tool could be useful more broadly. While the team’s focus was immigrants, “it was cool to come out on the other end and see, oh, this could actually impact so many people on top of the community that we’re first trying to help,” Calem said.
—————
Honest conversations about AI’s potential and limitations
The student teams showed what their prototypes can do, but they also acknowledged their limitations, including people potentially relying on the tools as legal advice.
Attendees also voiced concerns that AI tools simply improve efficiency and speed up processes. “If all we do is shove a bunch more work in, as a profession, lawyers are going to be deeply unhappy,” Carr said at the showcase. But, for example, if filing a motion becomes more efficient, “maybe it also reduces the judge’s frustration level because they’re not trying to read handwriting.”
Carr said, “We really hope that these tools actually give us a chance to be more human with each other.”
That idea helped assuage the AI skepticism that Karira had before taking the clinic. Her perspective has shifted, in part because of Carr and Sankaran’s proposition “that AI, used thoughtfully…can absorb the procedural and repetitive work that lawyers do and make us better advocates and have us listen more, notice more, slow down, and kind of reimagine how we’re helping people,” Karira explained, pointing to the professors’ newsletter More Time to Be Human, as an additional source of inspiration.
In the legal system, the approach often is: “We’re not going to break down the complexity—we’re just going to give you more information about it. Here’s an 80-page packet that explains the complexity, but we’re not actually going to make it any easier to navigate,” said Danielle Kalil, director of civil justice and the judiciary at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, who served as an expert panelist at the showcase. But, she said to the students, “You all have actually made the system more navigable for people in real ways.”
Rachel Hawrylo, director of the Genesee County Legal Resource Center, worked with a team of clinic students on a tool that walks people through filling out guardianship forms, which are long and complicated, and which a paralegal typically spends an hour helping someone with, she said. The tool allows them to serve more people, and the center plans to put it to use.
“I think it’s amazing, and I definitely think it needs to continue,” Hawrylo said of the clinic. “It can help a lot of people.”
“Our hope is that the event planted seeds,” Sankaran said. “The students showed what’s possible; now our partners are thinking about how AI might help them tackle challenges they face every day. That’s exactly the kind of conversation we set out to spark.”
Michigan Law
How can AI improve access to the legal system and to justice? This semester, as part of the AI Law and Policy Clinic, 20 Michigan Law students partnered with courts, legal aid organizations, and other nonprofits to identify barriers and challenges—and then design AI-assisted tools to help. At a recent showcase, they presented their prototypes and solicited feedback from members of the judiciary and other stakeholders.
“The showcase did two things at once. It gave our students a chance to demonstrate the remarkable work they’ve done this semester,” said Professor Vivek S. Sankaran, ‘01, who directs the AI Law and Policy Clinic with Professor Bridgette A. Carr, ‘02. “Just as importantly, it brought courts, legal aid organizations, and other stakeholders into the room to listen, ask questions, and start imagining what this technology might do for the people they serve.”
Over the semester, students used design thinking to create prototypes of tools that could help unrepresented and underrepresented people navigate complex or confusing systems. The tools also streamline processes, easing the burden on courts and nonprofits.
The eight student teams tackled problems ranging from migrant workers in debt bondage to college-bound foster youth figuring out their financial aid options.
—————
Helping parents create parenting time schedules
One team partnered with the 17th Circuit Court in Kent County, Michigan. Each year, thousands of unrepresented parents file incomplete motions for parenting time, which is the designated time a child spends with each parent if they live separately.
The students—Karma Karira, Habib Saad, and Graham Hardig—built a web tool with a guided interview that creates a court-ready parenting time schedule. It walks users through Michigan’s 12 best-interest factors for parenting time.
Often, parents are overwhelmed with the packet of guidelines and motions they’re given, said Karira, a 3L. “The tool guides parents through the practical details of parenting time disputes, pickup times, holiday assignments, transportation, and even snow days protocol, prompting them to think through factors they might otherwise overlook,” she said.
The tool includes an AI chatbot that explains legal terms, including “what a plaintiff or a defendant is, what a moving party is, and the Michigan law around custody and parenting time and the differences between those,” Karira said.
In the domestic relations part of the court, at least half of the litigants are self represented, said Judge T.J. Ackert of the Kent County 17th Circuit Court, Family Division. “Self-represented litigants are nervous and intimidated when they come to the court, so they’re not sure what they should do. Secondly, they’re not familiar with legal language or statutes or court rules, and that tends to narrow what they say when they should be more explanatory,” so their statements often are cryptic, he said.
The students visited Ackert’s courtroom to observe hearings. “The tool provides more access for self-represented litigants. They can easily access a motion to set up parenting time. They understand better the best-interest factors that need to be addressed in any motion,” said Ackert, who hopes to continue working with the clinic and improving the tool. “I think it’s just an excellent process and provides better information to the courts.”
—————
An emergency toolkit for parental authority
Another team of students—Ari Calem, Kate Zoeller, and Zack Born—talked with nonprofits in communities dealing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions and learned that Delegation of Parental Authority (DOPA) is a common issue. A DOPA form gives someone temporary legal authority to take care of and make decisions for a child if the parent(s) can’t. Immigrant parents may be unaware of these forms, and legal complexity and language barriers often lead to errors, especially in a crisis when a parent is detained.
The team built a tool that helps parents who face potential detention or deportation fill out DOPA forms properly. The multilingual, step-by-step tool asks structured questions, validates inputs, and generates a ready-to-sign document in plain language.
“It also explains what an attorney-in-fact is, what a notary is, and where you can find a notary and how to get the form notarized,” Calem said.
One showcase attendee pointed out that, because parents sometimes need DOPA forms for reasons unrelated to immigration—like traveling without their kids—the tool could be useful more broadly. While the team’s focus was immigrants, “it was cool to come out on the other end and see, oh, this could actually impact so many people on top of the community that we’re first trying to help,” Calem said.
—————
Honest conversations about AI’s potential and limitations
The student teams showed what their prototypes can do, but they also acknowledged their limitations, including people potentially relying on the tools as legal advice.
Attendees also voiced concerns that AI tools simply improve efficiency and speed up processes. “If all we do is shove a bunch more work in, as a profession, lawyers are going to be deeply unhappy,” Carr said at the showcase. But, for example, if filing a motion becomes more efficient, “maybe it also reduces the judge’s frustration level because they’re not trying to read handwriting.”
Carr said, “We really hope that these tools actually give us a chance to be more human with each other.”
That idea helped assuage the AI skepticism that Karira had before taking the clinic. Her perspective has shifted, in part because of Carr and Sankaran’s proposition “that AI, used thoughtfully…can absorb the procedural and repetitive work that lawyers do and make us better advocates and have us listen more, notice more, slow down, and kind of reimagine how we’re helping people,” Karira explained, pointing to the professors’ newsletter More Time to Be Human, as an additional source of inspiration.
In the legal system, the approach often is: “We’re not going to break down the complexity—we’re just going to give you more information about it. Here’s an 80-page packet that explains the complexity, but we’re not actually going to make it any easier to navigate,” said Danielle Kalil, director of civil justice and the judiciary at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, who served as an expert panelist at the showcase. But, she said to the students, “You all have actually made the system more navigable for people in real ways.”
Rachel Hawrylo, director of the Genesee County Legal Resource Center, worked with a team of clinic students on a tool that walks people through filling out guardianship forms, which are long and complicated, and which a paralegal typically spends an hour helping someone with, she said. The tool allows them to serve more people, and the center plans to put it to use.
“I think it’s amazing, and I definitely think it needs to continue,” Hawrylo said of the clinic. “It can help a lot of people.”
“Our hope is that the event planted seeds,” Sankaran said. “The students showed what’s possible; now our partners are thinking about how AI might help them tackle challenges they face every day. That’s exactly the kind of conversation we set out to spark.”
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